


for tonight you're only here to know

by devviepuu



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Enchanted Forest (Once Upon a Time), Curse Breaking, F/M, Mistaken Identity, The Enchanted Forest (Once Upon a Time), True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28885488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devviepuu/pseuds/devviepuu
Summary: In the darkness of the ballroom, the hall lit only by torchlight, her eyes glitter green like emeralds and he remembers:  The dark and stormy night with a full posting inn, which was good news for one Captain Killian Jones, sometimes granted the more colorful moniker of Hook after the curved and wickedly sharp prosthetic appendage where his left hand had once been.  Hook cared not one whit for the rain except that it was a harbinger of a roaring fire, a full dining room and plenty of easy marks for his dice.  Possibly the willing companionship of one of the chambermaids, or the barmaid.  A drinking companion at the least, a pretty face, something to look at besides the ruddy visage of his first mate or the quartermaster or the crew looking to spend their spoils on ale and food and women.What he was not prepared for, or expecting, was her.(Truth be known, he still isn’t.)
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Comments: 55
Kudos: 66





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by a [piece of art from @carpedzem](https://carpedzem.tumblr.com/post/640318595863396352/carpedzem-hey-captain-emmajones-how-are-you), who gave me permission to use the art and run with it

* * *

In the darkness of the ballroom, the hall lit only by torchlight, her eyes glitter green like emeralds and he remembers: The dark and stormy night with a full posting inn, which was good news for one Captain Killian Jones, sometimes granted the more colorful moniker of _Hook_ after the curved and wickedly sharped prosthetic appendage where his left hand had once been. Hook cared not one whit for the rain except that it was a harbinger of a roaring fire, a full dining room and plenty of easy marks for his dice. Possibly the willing companionship of one of the chambermaids, or the barmaid. A drinking companion at the least, a pretty face, something to look at besides the ruddy visage of his first mate or the quartermaster or the crew looking to spend their spoils on ale and food and women.

What he was not prepared for, or expecting, was _her_.

(Truth be known, he still isn’t.)

The clouds were so heavy, the rain so constant, that from the front door of the inn the harbor and the masts of the _Jolly Roger_ were invisible. Hook would send the crew back to the ship in good time, but he was determined to have one of the inn’s rooms for himself.

Alas that his path to the bar was blocked. _She_ was between him and it, her hair dark and braided back into a messy queue. His only view of her was from behind--Hook was not complaining--her leathers blue and well-worn--a belt at her waist with a scabbard for a knife long enough to be every bit as deadly as his hook. With a cry and a lunge she turned and Hook saw, clearly, that she had the weapon in hand and was _quite_ familiar with its proper use. With her other hand she had twisted the arm of someone--undoubtedly an unlucky fool who had dared to lay hands upon her--high up and behind his back as the tip of the blade just kissed the fleshy jowl under his chin.

Hook raised an eyebrow in appreciation. “Do you require any assistance, madam?” he asked.

She made a rude noise and his eyebrow went higher. “Because a ‘little lady’ such as myself might not understand the sharpness of this blade?” she answered, tilting her head in response even as she tightened her grip on the Fool. Hook inclined his head very slightly, his left arm outstretched and his right hand resting on the buckle of his belt. “Because a gentleman always offers to help a damsel in distress.”

With a snarl the woman let go of the Fool and said, “I’m a damsel--in distress--but I can handle it. As long as you--” this was spat in the general direction of the Fool “--have learned some manners?”

With a mumbled curse the Fool gripped his wrist and rubbed it, slinking away, as the woman’s eyes turned fully toward Hook.

Everything--the tavern, the rain, the cold, the full tap room and the flickering fire--vanished as he found himself staring into her eyes; there was her and only her and the world created by the two of them in that moment. Who he was--where he was--what he was--everything he’d been and done--all of it gone until she blinked and the world resumed.

“I assure you, madam, that my manners are nothing if not impeccable.” It was a challenge to speak.

Hook loved a challenge.

“Because you’re a gentleman,” she said, with an exaggerated shrug as she sheathed the knife.

“Always,” he said, his voice low and serious as he offered her his hand.

She regarded him, looking him over, up and down from his boots to the eyebrow that was still up in his fringe as he watched her. A smile curved th edges of her mouth--a glint in her eyes--they alighted on his hook and she said, “You’re Hook, then?” She extended her own hand. “I’m Swan.”

For all that Hook and the _Jolly Roger_ were the terrors of the high seas it was this woman-- _Swan_ \--who roamed the forests, guarding the roads to and fro where they criss-crossed the capital city of Misthaven, exacting tolls according only to her own criteria of who might be required to pay.

“So you’ve heard of me?” he said, sweeping over her hand as he took it, turning it gently so that he might kiss the tops of her knuckles. “It’s always nice to leave an impression.” He squeezed, slightly, with a smile that felt, somehow, realer to him than any he had offered in some time, as she winced.

She _winced_ , and covered it up so quickly he almost missed it but for the way her fingers stiffened.

“Swan,” he said, pulling her hand closer so that he could rest it on top of his wrist. “Are you bleeding?” Someone behind her stumbled and he felt the weight of her against him before his brain registered what happened. It, and he, could only process one single thought: _She smells delicious_.

It was then--though he would not realize it until much, much, later--that he saw her eyes flash green for the first time.

(He would not realize it until the image began to infiltrate his dreams, to haunt him in his waking hours with the memory of them, of her, of the noise she made and the way she smelled and felt and _tasted_.)

“It’s fine, she said; looked up at him and gasped a small _oh_ and this, of all the sounds she made that night, might be the one that most haunts him still.

“Oh,” he said. _Oh_. Then, “That is a plausible excuse for grabbing me, but please--next time do not stand on ceremony.”

The spell--for that is what it was--broke, and she stepped back. But she was still smiling as she said, “Consider it thanks for your ‘assistance’, then.”

“I thought you didn’t require assistance,” Hook said, shaking his head. “You had the matter well in hand, if your plan was to stab every man here.”

Her smile turned playful. “If I had wanted anyone stabbed,” she said, “you wouldn’t have known it until my knife was buried in their chest.”

“I believe you,” he said. And he did. He stepped closer--just one foot in front of the other--she held her ground. “Is that all my ‘assistance’ is worth to you? You speak of stabbing, but what of my heart, which has surely been pierced by Cupid’s arrow?”

Hook was playing with fire and he knew it, but she was more than his match in this game as she threw her head back and laughed, as she pulled at the lapels of his coat until they were inches apart and said, “Does Captain Hook have a heart, then?”

Her hand was on his wrist--his _right_ wrist, where _her_ name was inked into his skin--and it was this, perhaps, as much as anything that made him answer as he did. “It’s been a very long time since anyone has accused me of such a thing,” he said, his voice once more low and serious and more truthful than he intended it to be.

He _was_ playing with fire.

But she was beautiful, and it never took him long to warm to pretty things.

“As for gratitude--” he said, and she scoffed.

“Please,” she said, a smirk on her face that was delighted and inviting and yet somehow-- _more_ \--heated and winding a lazy, pleasant curl of flame straight to the base of his cock. “You couldn’t handle it.”

His hand went back to hers where it was still gripping the leather of his coat; his fingers brushed hers and he felt her shiver. “Perhaps you’re the one who couldn’t _handle it_ ,” he said, a whisper into her ear as he took another step closer.

“Try me,” she said, looking up at him through her eyelashes. The taproom’s lights were bright--very bright--and yet not bright enough.

It felt as if the room itself was suddenly spinning.

She was beautiful.

“I would love to,” Hook said. “If only I had a room.” His breathing was perfectly even but there was a gravelly undertone that had not been there before.

“Oh,” she said. “What if we used mine?”

She rose, standing on her toes--pulled his forehead to hers with a gentle hand guiding his jaw as they lingered in their moment, the world around them vanished once more as they stood together.

It was magic.

(But that, too, is something he will not learn for quite some time.)

Ariel is standing next to him when he sees her, because Ariel-- _Princess_ Ariel, of the Maritime Kingdom, had put him in this position, of needing to be her escort. Killian Jones, Captain Hook, puts his neck on the lines for two things: Love and revenge.

But a true gentleman may not turn down a request from a lady in distress, especially when the cause of her strife matches so easily with his own.

And might, perhaps, be laid at his door.

Hook should have known she-- _Swan_ \--would be here. She has her grudges, too, after all.

He should have known--perhaps he did, perhaps he _had_ , hoped for it, planned for it--but nothing about it prepares him for what he sees in front of him right now, which is-- _her_.

Princess Emma, of Misthaven. Heir to the Queen.

The _Evil_ Queen.

 _Princess_ Emma, her golden blonde hair dangling in loose curls nearly to her waist, her green eyes bored and her face expressionless as she surveys the crowd come, against their will, to honor her mother’s step-mother.

No.

Hook blinks, and the expression is gone--he’s not even sure he saw it at all as he looks and sees the vapid smile of a young woman immature enough, spoiled eough, rich enough to gaze upon all of this and not understand its meaning and then she sees him.

And Hook knows what he saw.

Her gown is blue.

(Just like her leathers, Hook remembers--he _remembers_ , a lie he tells himself as if there is ever a day he forgets. As if a single day has gone by, since that one, where he does not think of her.)

Princess Emma.

Swan.

He shouldn’t recognize her--she has clearly set up her entire life so that _no one_ will recognize her--but he remembers. Remembers how the door closed and for a brief and fleeting moment there was a flash of insecurity--of green--before she looked at him with a gaze so intense he felt his insides flip; he was so close to her, his nostrils were filled with nothing but her, something sweet and delicate but spicy, as if for balance. The torches accentuated the strong muscles of her body and when he dared to meet her eyes again, he saw that she was watching him watch her.

“Your eyes--” was all she said. “When you look at me like that--”

“My apolo--” but he couldn’t finish the word before she pushed him against the wall of the small and dark rented room.

His throat was suddenly dry, his heartbeat accelerated, and she _felt_ it, he knew she did as she touched him, her hand roaming over his chest and tracing the embroidered pattern of the brocade waistcoat he wore. Her fingers tangled in the charms he wore around his neck; the torches flared as she found his mouth with hers, her lips exploring his as desire flooded him. He was nothing but hot and hungry need and she felt this, too, from the sound she made in the back of her throat. The way her breasts pushed closer against him.

“Is this a dream?”

Hook is still not sure if he said it out loud or if he only thought it; she was there, and warm, and real and those were the only three facts that mattered. He grasped her wrist, turning them so that she was against the wall, and left his hand there as his hook anchored at her hip. He left his hand there for steadiness.

For strength.

It was only a kiss.

(It was the longest kiss in the world.)

She made him weak-kneed--she made him want everything at once, impossible and fantastical things he didn’t even have words for. He had to have her then and there and that instant, yet he didn’t want to move, to do anything to interrupt the sensations coursing through him.

“Swan,” he breathed, and the torches flared again and her eyes flashed again and the noise she made this time was small and sad until he kissed it away, butterfly kisses across her cheeks until she found his mouth once more and there was nothing but fire.

Pure, hungry fire.

And _magic_.

Hook knows the rumors, though they are nothing more than whispers passed around secret networks, of the princess under the Evil Queen’s thumb as she bides her time--twenty-eight years since her parents’ mysterious disappearance. _The product of True Love_ , they say--for her parents’ love story is already regarded as legend--and thus allegedly the vessel for magic that even the Evil Queen cannot tame. _If only_ , the whispers say, _if only she were_ more _than the vapid girl she appears._

He has no names for what he felt that night, just as he had no words for everything she made him want. It’s something he only knows now, looking back--looking at her and the way she stands in front of him in all of her majesty as he understands that something in their coupling made the glamour she surrounded herself with shatter when her magic surged and her eyes flashed green.

Even that night there was something regal about her, Hook thinks, as he wanted nothing more than to fall to his knees, to worship at the temple of her body he was hers for the taking, and she knew it.

So long as she wanted him, she could take him any way she liked.

He remembers the feeling of her hair as he tangled his hand in the dark locks--the dark locks that glittered gold in the torchlight, in his imagination, in his dreams, and now in reality--as he kissed her and he was anything but gentle. As she answered him--not gentle, either. Her skin was luminous as she removed her belt and tunic, as he unfastened the buttons of her shirt and exposed her to the dim golden glow of the torches, as she pulled herself closer to him and he grasped her from behind, crushing her against him.

It is her gown that glitters now, diamonds strewn across a blue blanket and Hook thinks she is aware of being watched, that _he_ is watching her. Ariel tugs at his sleeve in a futile attempt to divert his attention but he is unmoving, his eyes only on _her_. Swan-- _Emma_ \--is so still and so quiet that she might be a statue, her posture rigid as she holds herself tightly as a breath underwater and Hook thinks he might be the only one in this room who sees her as she truly _is_ , and not what she appears to be. The gown is beautiful-and she is beautiful in it--but Hook finds himself missing the soft blue leather that showed off not the body of a woman of leisure, but of a fighter--supple as a bowstring, twice as strong.

Ariel tugs again and he turns to look at her, to see the disapproval stamped all over her face. A second passes--two--before he decides, dropping Ariel’s hand, walking carefully around so that he comes up behind the princess as the dancing begins. Feels her spine tighten under his touch. She _knows_. Knows he can see _her_ and not the glamour she shows to the world; there is murder in her eyes as he leads her onto the floor.

Then again, Hook has always had something of a death wish.

Lunacy, his brother used to call it. Daring, say the reverent whispers of his men. Hook thinks that, tonight at least, his brother has the right of it. The question is on his lips before he can think better of it. “Fighting, dancing, knifeplay, magic--what other arts is the Princess of Misthaven taught?” Despite the intimacy of their positions, he keeps his tone casual.

There is no sign of a silly young woman--there is only Swan, the bandit, the woman he made love to on a dark and cold rainy night when she says, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

He would.

That’s the problem.

They complete three figures of the dance as her eyes widen in surprise--perhaps at the notion of a dancing pirate, perhaps at the easy ways their bodies move together, as if they are once more alone in the safety and the darkness of that small rented room--there is time for nothing else because a princess cannot linger in the crowd with a strange man--with a _hook_ \--for too long without attracting notice.

The truth is that neither of them wants to attract notice, especially the notice of the Evil Queen.

Hook watches her go and feels himself deflate before he returns to Ariel and her disapproving stare. She gestures and it is eloquent in its silence: _We have a job to do_. He smiles and nods because she’s right and he’s a right _arse_. “I’m sorry, lass,” he says, and means it. Ariel’s hand lands on his wrist and she squeezes.

He puts his hand atop hers and squeezes back.

“Let’s go steal a compass,” he says.

The compass is _his_.

He stole it first.

And it is this, perhaps, that rankles as much as--more than--anything. Because she had done more than leave him. He’d always known she would, from the first glimpse of her in the taproom. Hook has no more claim to her than any man; it is the principle of the thing.

There is such a thing as honor among thieves, after all.

But not for Swan, or so it seems, and she proves this hypothesis further when she appears--Hook would say _materializes_ \--behind him and steps out of a shadow with her knife at his neck.

“Twitch,” she says, “and I will cut your throat.”

He does wonder where upon her person she hid the knife, a passing thought only before he has her wrist in his hand, his hook along the neckline of her dress as it glides across her decolletage; she is backed up against the wall with surprise once more in her eyes, the knife now pointing down and toward the floor.

“Bad form, love, coming up behind a man like that,” he says. He does not leer--he looks nowhere but her face. Her eyes. One breath--two--she blinks and he is the one on the defensive, her knife pushed gently against the inside of his thigh. An inch higher--

She grins.

They are dancing, just as they had been in the ballroom--once around, twice, three times--and the only thing keeping him centered is her eyes as the world spins.

She’s skilled with her blade, he cannot deny it. Hook wonders at the Queen allowing her heir to be so proficient in weapons that could one day be used against her.

Or, perhaps, the Queen does not know.

Perhaps the Queen, like everyone else, sees only what Swan--what _Emma_ \--wants them to see.

She is good, but he is better. His hook slides across the edge of her knife until he is very nearly on top of her and they are both breathing heavily when she says, “Killian.”

(A whisper in the darkness, a gentle moan. “Hook.”)

(“‘Killian’, love,” he whispered. “‘Killian’ will do.”)

When she spoke his name there was Power in it; she exhaled it gently and it was a caress as he inhaled the scent of her and savored the taste of her and she reached for his arm, pulling it from the wall and guiding it until it joined his hook at her waist, their bodies reconnected. Here, and now, there is still Power; her eyes change to something wide and _frightened_ as the torches flare around them.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, _shit_.”

Hook laughs. It’s a quiet laugh but it echoes in the empty hallway all the same. “Fine talk for a lady,” he says.

“Who says I’m a lady?”

And he laughs again, at the Princess of Misthaven, with her knife pressing his side.

Daring.

Lunacy.

 _Magic._ He wants to kiss her again. (Always. Forever.)

But Ariel awaits, and he does have a job to do--there is a limit to how long a man can stay lost in a woman’s eyes while he catches his breath. Even _her_ eyes.

“You, Princess, are like no lady I have ever met before.” He moves his head, pulls himself away from her; his voice, however, carries with it all of the intimacy of the bedchamber, of that dark room they’d shared. “You also have something I need,” Hook says. “I must request that you return it to me.”

She took it from him that night almost as if she’d planned it, and maybe she had. Maybe she’d been _looking_ for him, maybe she’d known the _Jolly Roger_ was back in port; these were but some of the questions he asked himself on all of the mornings after, when he woke up panting with want.

(He dreams of her--Swan--the only woman he has dreamed of besides _her_ in all of his unnaturally long life--but that is a question Hook is not sure he is ready to have answered.)

“You would do better to return to the ballroom, pirate, and to your pretty partner,” she says, “before she finds out your purpose in being here, or that you are in a darkened corridor with another woman.”

“Ah,” he says, and takes another step back. The seriousness of her tone makes him want to laugh again but for all that he might have a death wish, Hook is not truly suicidal. “How fortunate for me that Princess Ariel knows not only my purpose in being here, but volunteered herself to be part of the endeavor. Nay, _insisted._ ”

This surprises her and he can see it in the fraction of a second the expression lingers. “Princess Ariel?”

“Aye,” Hook says. “She is here to beg a boon of the Queen, as is her right on the heir’s birthday.” The _Evil_ Queen, he does not say, for they might be alone in a darkened hallway but for some things there can never be enough caution. In the aftermath of the disappearance of Snow White and Prince Charming, the Queen could have rained down death and destruction. Yet though she doled out both with a heavy hand in those dark early days, the Queen is a canny ruler, leaving in place beloved traditions of pomp and circumstance, of perceived benevolence and mercy. She has not won over the populace, not by any means, but she has subdued them: Quick to anger, quick to punish, and always magnanimous in her forgiveness once the example has been set.

Unable to help himself, he inches forward again. “Warmest felicitations, Princess.”

Hook is here tonight because he can never repay the debt he owes Ariel for exposing her to the Queen’s “mercy”, but no one--save Ariel--need ever know that.

“And if I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request?”

She ignores his bait and smiles at him, icy cold and arch and the expression is nothing so much as a copy of her step-grandmother’s.

“Then I shall take it,” he says. “I am, as you say, what I am.”

Hook has seen that smile, and worse, from the Queen herself and he takes another step. _Pushes_.

Holds up an object in his hand: A small vial corded with a piece of string, meant to be worn around the neck. He dangles it for a second between them before he vanishes the vial into his sleeve with a flick of his wrist. “You’re not the only one who can do tricks, Highness,” he says. “As you have taken from me, now I have taken from you. Though what your purpose is with sparkly dirt I am not sure I want to know.”

Her face reddens, color tinging her cheeks and the tips of her ears. “Give that back.” It is a threat, and she makes it in deadly earnest. “You’ve seen what I can do when provoked. I can do it to you, too.”

“You can try. Again,” he says. “You’ll fail just as you did before, and it will be just another excuse for your grabbing me. Not that I would object in any way.”

“Grabbing you? _You_ came after me and nearly got us _caught_. Do you have _any_ idea how long I’ve been planning, waiting to--”

“You need me. Just as I, it seems, need you. So what do you say _we_ \--” he gestures, moving his hand between the two of them “--try something new, darling? _Trust_. I may be a thief and a pirate but I am also a man of honor.”

“--someone is going to _see us_. And _talk_.” She is furious. “Your friend--”

“Cannot say anything,” Hook says. He cannot keep the bitterness from his own voice, not when Ariel has none. “That is why she was forced to attend tonight. That is her boon from the Queen.”

Her eyes widen. “It was you,” she says. “You’re the reason Ariel is here tonight.”

He does not question how easily she can read him. How well she _already_ knows him. For the first time tonight Hook cannot bear to be near her as he steps away--two steps, three, four--scrubs his hand down his face as he exhales. “Aye,” he says, as she follows him--for the first time tonight pushing _him_ , invading _his_ space.

The torches flare, a burst of light that envelops her face and the concern in her eyes and he can’t look at her, turns his head and is met with resistance as her hand cups his jaw and forces him to meet her gaze.

“And you?” It’s a whisper.

Hook doesn’t answer straightaway--he does not know what to tell her--needs her to trust him. “I am here with her but our missions are not the same,” he says. His words are careful, and the princess does not fail to notice. She nods--nothing else; it hangs between them before she speaks again.

Hook can feel her breathing, puffs of air brushing across his cheek.

“And I should trust you, when Princess Ariel’s trust is what brought her here in the first place?”

It is a blow and it lands and there is nothing he can say that will justify his actions--not to her, and not to himself--so he says nothing, for a moment every bit as mute as Ariel is.

“I am a thief,” he says, smiling, turning her words back on her. “I put my neck on the line for two things: Love and revenge. This business with Ariel is just that--business.”

“And your business here tonight? Honor?” She mocks him, uses _his_ words.

Let her.

“Revenge.” He tastes the word, savors it, takes solace in its familiar cadence and its comforting syllables.

Emma tilts her head. “I see,” she says, as if she does. She lets go, pulls back. She moves mere inches and it feels like a chasm has opened between them. “You should know something about me, Hook.”

He exhales a laugh that’s more of a snort. He cannot help himself. Hook has seen, touched, tasted, worshipped every inch of her body--of _Swan’s_ body--but he does not know this woman at all.

The princess is smiling now, a tight smile that Hook finds he does not care for. “I am very good at telling when people are lying. And I believe you. But I also believe--” she follows his head with her gaze as he tries to turn away “--that you wish to make amends. So we will do this together. Do not make me regret this. I am not taking my eyes off of you, not for a second.”

“Princess,” he says, and he says it sincerely, “I would despair if you did.”

She laughs, a gentle chuckle that Hook _feels_ as she smiles--a real smile, that _same_ smile, that same chuckle, delighted and heated and echoing in his dreams.

 _Magic_.

“Killian,” she says, and nothing else.

Nothing else because here is a shout at the end of the hallway and they are no longer alone.

She pushes him back, back--slams him into the wall so hard it hurts but he does not even notice because the torches flare again--still--brighter now as her mouth finds his. It doesn’t surprise him, this time--the magic--he feels it coursing through him, warmth and comfort and something else, the things he cannot name, the things he cannot _want_. Hook turns his head, kisses her jaw, kisses her skin, lets himself be guided by the hitch of her breath and her body pressing into his, her hips rocking against his--a barely-there movement impeded by all of the layers of her gown.

He’s pinned to the wall and he would stay there forever if she told him to.

“Be still,” she whispers. “Kiss me again.”

What else can he do but comply?

He is, after all, only human--has dreamed about this almost every night since the night she left him-- _stole from him_ \--

“Princess,” he murmurs, but she surges against him. “Swan--”

He hears his name again, a whisper this time. A cry, a plea, a wish; the warmth of a tear where their cheeks touch, salty and hot when it hits his tongue.

The steps are getting louder and with each one Hook imagines her pulling him closer; the steps in time with his breathing, in time with his _heartbeat_.

They are caught.

“Princess.” It is a man’s voice, a voice that Hook recognizes filtered through the helmets of one of the Queen’s Black Knights.

He steels himself, and stills himself, and watches the woman in front of him transform. It’s her posture--her expression--the way she holds her head--her eyes look even wider, suddenly innocent--she _blushes_.

“Oh!” Emma giggles, and never has a Hook heard a sound less suited to a person.

“You should not be here,” the man says. “Princess, you should return to the party before you are missed.”

Emma _pouts_ and Hook can only wonder if he and he alone can see the artifice in the expression. “I was just having a bit of fun,” she sighs.

The man coughs a sound that might be a laugh, or it might be exasperation. Hook keeps himself from smiling and decides it is probably a bit of both. Either way, it is laced with fondness--either way, Hook has no way of knowing yet if this voice and its fondness will be in his favor, or against it.

“I’m sure that is true, Princess,” the man says. His voice is gentle and persuasive. “But if you please, your Highness, I would rather the Queen not--”

“Of course, Graham.” Emma somehow manages to sound petulant even in her agreement. Her smile returns. It’s playful in the way that a child is playful and as foreign to Hook as the simper and the giggle and he tries not to wink as she turns her attention to him. “Are you coming?”

Only in her eyes does he see the spark of genuine amusement, of teasing, as if she can see every dirty thought in his mind and agrees with _all of them_. Only the presence of the man--this hallway--Hook’s purpose-- _Ariel_ \--keeps his body from responding to the question.

The man answers before Hook can even open his mouth. “No. He’s staying.”

The fondness is gone, replaced by hard edges and a softly-sheathed threat.

Emma sighs again. She tugs the chain around his neck. Gives herself an exaggerated shake as she deliberately rearranges the neckline of her dress and walks--saunters--back toward the ballroom.

Hook exhales the breath he has been holding, but does not move to follow. He counts back from five and has only made it to two before the man speaks.

“What the bloody _fuck_ do you think you are doing here? With _her_?” The man yanks at his helmet and runs his free hand through the thick dark curls and many, many things click into place.

Such as: “It was you, wasn’t it--who taught the princess to fight?”

Graham looks away. “It is the least of what I owe to her.”

“Snow White did not ask for your sacrifice,” Hook says.

“And what do you know of sacrifice, _pirate_ \--”

“I would not do what Regina required.”

“You had a _choice_ ,” Graham spits.

“That does not mean my goals have changed in all of these years,” Hook says, “nor has my determination to achieve them ebbed.”

“And now you’ve come to beg a boon of the Queen on the heir’s birthday? Or--” The man’s expression darkens as he reaches for his sword.

“I assure you, Humbert, that is the opposite of my purpose this night.” Hook takes a step forward. “Right now, I am here to beg _you_. Let me go after her.”

“The Queen? Or the princess?”

“Emma,” Killian says softly.

“You put the princess’s life in danger, and for what? A tumble in a hallway? If the Queen sees you--”

“Peace, Huntsman.” Hook holds his hand in a preemptive warding gesture.

Graham hisses. “Do not call me that. I beg you. Those days are long gone.” There is sadness in the words, wistful and broken.

Hook has heard all of those things and more in his own voice over the years, seen all of that in his reflection in the mirror, inked all of it into his skin with thousands of pinpricks, each painful jab a reminder of what he has lost; he relents. “I know you are not so much her creature as that,” he says.

“Perhaps. But I am not so much free of her as that either.” Graham sighs. “And soon, neither shall you be.”

The hallway goes dark as Hook falls.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry. ;-)

It’s the smell of her and the taste of her, the way her hair feels and her breath feels and her skin feels and--it’s gone.

(He’s used used to it, now, the way he dreams of Swan and not of Milah.)

(This is the lie he tells himself.)

“Is this a dream?” Hook whispers, opens his eyes and sees her face--the emeralds of her eyes--swim into a vision that refuses to focus. Waits for the flush of relief that does not--quite--come.

“I’ll pinch you, if that will help you wake up.” Her gaze is concerned even as her tone is light.

Hook laughs. It hurts. “You came back for me,” he says. He cannot keep the wonder from his voice. He doesn’t even try. He feels for a moment as if there is no filter between his brain and his mouth and this simple fact--that Hook cannot recall the last time someone, anyone came back for him--is important for her to realize.

Because it’s never happened.

Except for _her_ , his Milah. And she died for it.

He wants to say more. Tries to.

But he cannot.

Swan smiles. Hook waits for his heart to flutter.

It does not.

“I couldn’t leave you here in the corridor, looking like the dead guy of the year.”

“Do I?” Hook is confused. “Is that why it hurts when I laugh?”

“Does it?” Her voice turns sharp and he flinches.

“No,” he says. It’s a lie. Emma’s eyes narrow and something tells him not to let her linger on this so he says, “Shouldn’t I be the one assaying a daring rescue?”

She smiles again and Hook exhales a sigh of relief that also, inexplicably, hurts. “Sorry, Hook, the only one who saves me is me.” Emma stands and holds out her hnd to him, waiting for him to pull himself up. “I’m sorry I broke my promise. I didn’t think Graham would be so hard on you.”

“He got his point across,” Hook concedes. He ignores the other thing as he reaches for her hand and squeezes. Her hand, so small in his, feels warm to him.

Warmth, but no fire.

Hook waggles his eyebrows as he levers himself upright. Every gesture, every movement, feels contrived and he shakes his head, wishing he could clear it of the fog that seems to have settled in while he was unconscious. The look Emma gives him is appraising.

Finally she says, “Follow me.”

It is not until he thinks to turn left when she goes to turn right that he realizes his mistake. Even then, he thinks--hopes--she has not noticed.

“We’re going this way,” she says, pulling at his hook. “To the dungeons.”

“I’m not certain I see that ending up well for me,” he says with a laugh he does not feel.

“Maybe it won’t,” Emma says. Her tone is light but her expression is serious. It’s on the tip of his tongue to ask--to _push_ \--but some instinct is warning him to stay silent even as he has to bite down hard to keep himself speaking the words. _Why?_ The shadows between the torches seem to lengthen, to follow them--follow her--as they move, as she moves, and they remain shrouded in semi-darkness as the bustle of the ballroom recedes further into the background.

But then she asks: “You’ve been here before,” she says, and it is _not_ a question. “You thought we were going to the vault.”

He had--to both, though he had no reason to suspect the latter, he cannot deny that was his expectation. But all he says is, “Of course I have, darling. I’m Captain Hook, most fearsome pirate in the realm. Did it not occur to you that perhaps I have broken into the Queen’s castle before this night?”

“No,” she says. “I’m sure you have. But that’s not why you’ve been here before, is it?”

There is a commotion at the end of the hallway and this time he grabs _her_ , pulls her into the deepening shadow. “Aye,” he whispers. “I’ve been here before. A long time ago.”

Her hands are braced on his forearms. She presses gently on his left wrist at the spot just above his brace, the spot her fingers traced and her lips brushed as she kissed it, gently, gently, that night in the cold and the rain and the darkness and the warmth they made in the bed they shared.

Hook closes his eyes and inhales, deeply. It’s a reflex, after so many years; he waits for the rush of pain that inevitably--

“It’s to do with this, isn’t it?” Emma pulls her hand away. 

It doesn’t come, the pain. There is only the darkness, there is only Emma standing in front of him. The commotion is getting closer. Footsteps. Shouting.

“How do you know Graham?” There is urgency in her words, in her voice. “Do you _know_ my grandmother?”

Hook raises his arm and _shoves_ , raises his hook against the three Black Knights who are approaching at speed, his body between them and the princess. Emma moves to defend herself, to reach for her knife, and he _stops her_ , his arm still in front of her as he slashes his hook at the Knights and she tenses behind him; he can feel her frustration at having to play the helpless maiden.

She screams.

It’s as if something shatters, as if the Knights are just now cognizant of whom they are chasing in this hallway, be she guarded by a pirate or not. In their distraction Emma lashes out, drops to the ground and kicks. It’s clever. It’s _brilliant_ , in fact--takes them completely by surprise--she disables one as Hook moves in to disarm the second and then turns about to catch the third’s sword in his hook and force it to the ground.

It’s over as soon as it begins. Emma grabs his hook and pulls him along with her as they make a mad dash for the _next_ hallway, the next shadows. Their backs are to the wall as they breathe, heavily, the energy from the fight running high and still coursing through their veins and she _looks_ at him and Hook grins, he laughs, he says, “I don’t mean to upset you, Emma, but we seem to make a good team.”

It’s heady, when she laughs; it’s warm and full of promises when she reaches for him, pulling at the lapels of his coat to bring him closer to her.

Their lips brush.

It’s ice when he clears his throat and moves before they are flush, side-stepping her embrace and the hurt in her eyes as they freeze over, go cold. Hook craves nothing so much in that moment as the feel of her mouth on his, feels it inside him like a need, like a compulsion, and yet _he cannot_.

He does not.

The smile on his face is suddenly fake and forced but he makes it anyway, flashes his teeth at her and gestures, half-bent at the waist with his hook pointing the way. “After you, milady.”

“You’re going to tell me about the compass,” she says. “The truth.” Her hand hovers over her lips. “Start with the woman.”

“She was taken from me,” Hook says. The words are clipped, short. “A long time ago.”

“That’s why you want the compass, then.” As before, it is not a question. “You want to find her.”

“I would give anything to find her.” He pauses, again, for the pain. “If only it were possible.” It’s--

“Why not?” Emma presses.

“She’s dead.” It’s an _echo_ , a memory of pain. His voice sounds hollow.

Emma’s face whitens, her eyes widen. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“It was a long time ago,” Hook snaps. Her eyebrows go up.

“And you loved her.” Fingers on her lips again. “Love--and revenge. You believe the compass will take you to the person who killed her? Find him?”

“Oh, I know who killed her,” Hook says. “I’ve known for many, many long years. The compass will reveal what I need to defeat him.”

“To kill him.” Emma’s voice does not waver when she says it. “You want to kill him.”

“Aye,” he says.

“And you went to my grandmother for help. When?”

Hook sighs. Shrugs. Repeats, “A long time ago, lass. Before you were born.”

She frowns as she steps closer, as she reaches for his face, stopping him from turning away. “That’s not possible,” she says. “You look--”

Hook looks her dead in the eyes and does not blink. “I, like you, am more than what I appear,” he says carefully. “I spent many years in Neverland.” Gently, he removes her hand and steps back into the shadow. Waits for the questions he knows are coming. Why, how, when. But what she asks is not what he expects. 

“Is it true,” Emma says, “is it true that the Lost Boys cry out in the night?”

She surprises him.

And the way that she looks at him is--

“Aye,” he says. How does she always manage to surprise him? “They cry for what they have lost. Parents. _Home_. I suspect you, princess, would know something of that yourself. Only because of the nature of the island, they are not permitted the luxury of grief, of mourning. Neverland is an eternal present. Time does not pass and one’s hurts never quite heal.” For the briefest of seconds there is a flare of light as he whispers these truths to her. “Loss. Revenge. And love.”

He waits, and says nothing else; Emma hesitates, watching him. Her fingers twitch but she does not move, except to nod. “Graham knew my mother.”

“I know,” Hook says. “I knew him once, too. Before. The Queen extracted a price from him and he paid it on your mother’s behalf. He hasn’t aged a day since then.”

It is the truth, and he can see that it surprises her. She looks, for the first time, small. She exhales a small sound. _Oh_.

“An eternal present?”

“Something like that,” he agrees. He opens his mouth again, to say more, but--

“And you?”

“Me?”

“You went to her for help,” Emma says. “In your quest for revenge you went to the Evil Queen.”

That’s not--quite--how it went. Hook feels that he should explain but all he can say is, “I did. But what she asked for, I would not--could not--give. At the final test, I failed.”

“What did she want?”

Hook does not bother to hide the anger in his voice when he answers. “She wanted me to kill my father.” Emma starts to speak and he cuts her off, a silencing gesture with his hand that pushes her farther into the hallway. “Do not mistake me, I was happy to. But he had another young son and I realized--”

Now they are both silent. She is contemplative as she turns and begins, once more, to walk.

“Ariel caught you, somehow.” Her voice is pitched so that it does not carry.

He stops. “I know not what you mean.”

“Liar,” she says, half-turning to face him. “That’s what happened, and that is why you are here tonight. Something caused you to cross paths, something that caught you between what you wanted to do and what the _right_ thing to do was. And because of it, she ran afoul of the Evil Queen. So now you are here tonight, where you can achieve both: Help the princess, and retrieve the compass.”

_Ariel_.

Hook almost turns away, to go back to the shadow, to the party, to the woman he wronged. But his feet do not move and he knows he must go forward. “You know the worst of me now,” he says instead of answering. Like almost everything else, the sentiment feels hollow. 

And Emma looks like she does not believe him. “Do I,” she says.

Hook says nothing. He does not know how to answer truthfully and he will not lie to her.

He still wants her to trust him.

“You know what she did to my parents,” Emma says. Like before, she is certain; it is not a question. “My grandmother--you know what she did to them.”

“I know what she planned, aye. But I do not know if she succeeded,” he says. “I can only guess.”

Emma stops before a door, motions for him to block her as she pulls something from her hair and the cuff of her dress to pick the lock. “Well,” she says, speaking over a faint _click_. “Tonight we are going to find out. You help me, and I will help you.” She holds the door open for him and waits for him to enter before she follows and pulls the door closed once more behind them. Hook hears a noise, a buzzing in his skull, a sound he has only heard in his nightmares, that chased him from sleep on the long Neverland nights to echo with the cries of the Lost.

A hiss. A hiss of _laughter_.

“Well, well, well.” The voice is low and rough, oddly pitched in an off-key singsong. “If it isn’t Captain _Hook_.”

The dungeons are dark, deep black that seems to permeate the very air around them, to seep into Hook’s soul--or maybe it is just the sound of that voice, that laughter, ricocheting around his brain, throughout his body, echoing in his ribcage.

For the first time since he woke up, he feels overcome. Anger, and darkness; beneath it all he feels fear. It is ruthlessly smothered, overtaken by the anger and the darkness that are being fanned by something he is not in control of, bubbling up inside him and bleeding out all around him. He cannot see straight. He can only see the creature in front of him, hanging upside-down on the bars of his cell.

“Welcome, princesssss.” The last syllable is nothing so much as a caress. The creature’s head is cocked and his tongue pokes out as if he wants to taste the word in the air, to feel the pleasure it gives him again. He releases the bar and lands on his feet.

Hook snaps his gaze back toward Emma, for this of all things is _not_ what he expected. Swan--and _him_. For an instant, he can see it in her eyes--genuine fear. But the mask slips quickly into place as she draws herself upright, unwilling to appear intimidated. He wonders how long the Dark One has been imprisoned in this castle.

Twenty-eight years, at least.

More than that, it is obvious to Hook that this is not their first meeting--obvious, too, that the princess had willing tutors for her magic in spite of the Queen’s efforts to keep it from her.

Hook seethes. “You,” he spits. “You--and him?” He does not bother to conceal his fury--takes pleasure in the way her eyes widen in surprise. “All of this time, you’ve been working with him?” He gestures at the creature, directs his next words at the figure in the cell: “All of this time, you’ve been here?”

“Exactly where I needed to be,” the creature says. “Perhaps not exactly in the way I planned, but I do confess--this is quite better than my wildest imaginings. I’ve missed you, Captain. How was the island of misfit toys?”

“You two know each other?” Emma says. For the first time since Hook approached her in the ballroom she seems genuinely shocked.

“Indeed,” the creature says. “You might say--” he laughs again, and Hook flinches “--you might say that he’s my oldest friend. Didn’t he tell you?” The creature is _delighted._

Her mouth falls open. She’s struggling. She’s _shaking_. “You?” Emma says. “You killed the woman he loves?”

“He stole her from me,” the creature says.

“Is it really theft if a woman begs you to take her away?” It’s Hook who savors the moment now. “Because you were a coward. Because she loved _me_. That’s what you couldn’t forgive as you ripped out her heart and crushed it in front of me.” He raises his arm and smiles. The rage is dissipating, somehow; Hook feels that he has, literally, the upper hand.

“Ah, ah, ah,” the creature says, pointing at the hook. “You _still_ can’t kill me. And even if you could--” the smile is cold “--vengeance won’t bring her back.”

Hook says nothing. He merely watches the creature pace in its cell.

“Enough.” The torches react to Emma’s energy but Hook feels only its absence. “ _Enough_.” She reaches for him and Hook steps neatly out of her grasp. The Dark One, watching them move--watching them _dance_ \--claps his hands with glee.

“You asked me once, princess, if I had a heart,” Hook says. “I don’t. And _this_ is why.”

The Dark One smiles.

“What’s your plan here, crocodile?” Hook says. “What will you do, locked up and bound in this dungeon?” He makes a mocking hand gesture, his arms angled and a sick smile splitting his face as he turns on Emma. “Has all of this been about him? He will do anything–anything–to hold on to his power. Tell me something, darling. Why would you want to ally yourself with a man like that?”

Emma is looking at him, at Hook, and he can feel the weight of her gaze like an anchor on his soul. Her eyes seem to pierce his very body, as if she can see his insides, as if she is weighing them for judgment. Something in his chest constricts and Hook gasps.

“Missy...missy,” the Dark One calls in his sing-song. “You know that I’ve told you the truth.”

“The Dark One sent me after the compass,” Emma says. “He told me I could use it to find my parents. With this.” She fiddles with one of her sleeves and pulls out the vial full of sparkly dirt and Hook curses. “It’s the remnants of a portal. A magical wardrobe the Queen used to send my parents away the day I was born.”

“The Queen created a powerful curse,” the Dark One says in his low hiss. “A prison. Just like this, only worse. Their prison--is _time_. Time stopped, and they are trapped--somewhere horrible--everything they loved ripped from them while they suffer for all eternity. And the Queen celebrates, victorious at last.” He bobs up and down on his feet, swaying in the darkness with the rhythm of his words. “Nothing can free them from its confines, except for their child. You see, no matter how powerful...all curses can be broken.”

Anger rises up in him once more. He turns to face the crocodile and his body does not want to obey his command. There is nothing in Hook but rage; it drives him forward step by step as he advances on Emma. The anger is overwhelming and it is an outside force propelling him, forcing him. “He won’t help you,” Hook says. “This isn’t about you. You’re nothing to him.”

The Dark One smiles again, wide enough to show the remnants of his pointed teeth. “On the contrary, I have known your name, princess, since before you were born. You are _everything_ to me.”

“Tell that to your _son_ , crocodile,” Hook whispers. He has to force the words out, but he knows they are true, that _Emma_ needs to know the truth. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? The sparkly dirt--whatever it is--is going to get you back to Bae.”

“Do _not_ speak my son’s name.” The words are a growl.

“Why shouldn’t I? I am the one who took him in when he ran--from _you,_ ” Hook says, breathing heavily. “You seem to have a bit of a nasty habit when it comes to your family, if they would rather seek refuge with a _pirate_ than a man like you. So tell me--tell all of us--what magic will you hide behind today?”

The creature is watching him, speculating; watching them, his head angled once more and his tongue tasting the air.

“Killian,” Emma says. There is an eternity in the pause after she speaks.

The Dark One makes a sound--a squeak, or maybe a squeal. He laughs again-- _hiss_ \--and claps. “I do love it when a plan comes together.”

Hook falters. Meets her gaze as a wave of heat--of fire--roils through him and the torches flare.

There is a faint smile--Hook might be imagining it--a nod of her head before her knife is suddenly in her hand, positioned perfectly to parry the thrust of his hook. 

Hook does not know when he moved, when he lunged, when he _attacked_ , but with a twist of her wrist his arm is pinned behind his back and the tip of her blade is against his throat.

“Not so fast,” Emma says.

And then there is only darkness.

It is in that moment, and not before, that he remembers.

He _remembers_.

Graham--the darkness--and what came after, as he woke up with his heart in her hand and the way it felt when she squeezed it, squeezing slowly, gently, the life force out of him drip by drip.

Against his will Hook was pulled up to his feet and she smiled, a cold and feral thing lined in blood-red lip paint he will remember to the end of his days. He was taller than the Queen but she towered over him in her heeled boots, the unrelieved black of her formal gown and matching headpiece adding to the perception that she was a statue, an edifice before which one could only bow and tremble. 

Hook did neither, for a pirate made no allegiance to Queen or to country, even if she did hold his heart in her hands. He merely stared, keeping his face blank and unaffected until the need to breathe became overwhelming and he gasped and doubled over.

“Hello, Hook.” The Queen’s tone was inviting, if a man could be invited to his own execution. “It’s been a long time. I thought you had carried yourself and your broken heart to another realm to lick your wounds. Imagine my surprise to see you here tonight--with not one, but _two_ women.”

Hook tried to speak but was cut off. “Your fishy friend is on her way back to the sea already. Her example has been set.” The glittering blackness of her eyes left no room for doubt as to whom the next example would be. “So you’re going to tell me how you know the princess.”

“Your granddaughter is a lovely girl,” Hook said. “I found her--quite _amiable_ , if you know what I mean.”

The Queen gave no reaction but to squeeze harder. He felt the air leaving his lungs and she watched him, not in the least interested if he lived or he died, content for it to go either way.

It had always been thus, with the Queen.

“Tell me about her,” she said. Her hand tightened and released, the movement in time with her words. “Tell me how you came to be looking for her on tonight of all nights. Her twenty-eighth birthday.”

The words were forced from him before he could stop himself. “I did not come here looking for her. I did not know she would be here at all.”

Her _twenty-eighth_ birthday. Hook knew--remembered--the significance of that date.

“You didn’t know,” the Queen repeated. “You didn’t know that Princess Emma would be at her own ball?”

“I was under the impression, Majesty, that it wasn’t hers.” Hook managed to raise one cheeky eyebrow and buried the relief he felt as deeply inside himself as he could--for the Queen _did not know_ , what Emma _was_ , what she was capable of. It was suddenly imperative that he not tell the Queen this even as he fought to keep his own mouth from speaking the words. “I accompanied the little mermaid merely to gain passage for my own mission. You know of what I speak. You know what it is I seek.”

“Ah, yes,” she whispered. “How many years has it been, Captain? How many years have you been chasing your crocodile across time and across realms? To think that all of this could have been avoided if you had only--” she clucked her tongue. “How many years have you been seeking your vengeance?”

“Longer than you have,” he spat. “And with more purpose.”

“Snow White is responsible for the death of the thing I loved most in the world,” Regina snarled. “As the Dark One is responsible for the death of your True Love. Perhaps twenty-eight years of fruitless wandering have provided you with additional motivation. Or--” her tone turned mocking “--have you forgotten her? Abandoned her in a stone hallway for a silly little girl who isn’t long for this world.” 

One by one she lifted her fingers from the heart, _his_ heart, until it was cradled in her palm, unencumbered. 

“You can help me tonight or you can die right here, your revenge incomplete.” 

Hook breathed in, and then out again. Just the once before she clamped back down.

_Emma_.

What was this witch going to do to Emma?

It was the only thought he had before the Queen spoke again.

“You have a simple choice before you, Hook. Love or revenge. Which will it be?”

Love. _Love._

Love?

His pulse throbbed in his wrist and he felt as if the tattoo on his forearm was beating where his heart should have been.

He feels the trickle of blood down his neck before he is even fully awake. There is a sound--Hook is not sure if he is hearing it, or imagining it, imagining the softness and the sweetness of her voice and the way it fills him.

_Killian. Come back to me_.

Hook opens his eyes and grunts in pain, barely breathing and it feels as if each breath might be his last and the only thought he has--it echoes around his empty insides, dull and painful like an old knife instead of the sharp blade piercing the edge of his skin--is that he cannot die like _this_.

“Regina.” The princess says only the single word, the name; it is a summons.

“The Queen,” he mumbles. It’s hardly a sound at all but Emma makes a soothing noise and hums in his ear.

“I know,” she whispers.

Hook shudders. A swirl of purple smoke rises from the floor, slowly at first but gaining speed and height and volume before it dissipates to reveal the Queen.

The Evil Queen.

And in her hand--Hook’s heart. He can feel Emma stiffen behind him but her grip does not loosen. 

The Queen laughs. “You can let him go. I have no further use for him.” She squeezes his heart for emphasis and as Emma pushes him away Hook turns himself around to catch her hand in his, to feel their fingers, however briefly, intertwine, before the Queen waves her hand and Emma’s knife is replaced with an apple as red as blood.

“What is this?” Emma asks. The words are steady and calm, her voice strong and true, but Hook watches her and knows she already knows the answer to her question.

So does he.

It is the stuff of legends, of Snow White and Prince Charming and _True Love_ and now their daughter stands before the Evil Queen, unarmed, with only a poisoned apple to show for her efforts. For she _is_ more than they said she was--Hook has known it since the moment he first saw her--and tonight, here, right now in this dungeon, is the Queen’s last opportunity for either utter defeat or total triumph over a botched curse that spanned two generations and nearly three decades. Hook wonders if Emma knows, too. If Rumplestiltskin had taken that much effort and trouble with his plans or if he was just using her as he used everything else--a coward and an opportunist to the last.

The Queen laughs again; it is no more pleasant a sound on the second instance than it was in the first. “It’s nothing. A morsel.” 

“And yet,” Emma says, “I am certain that eating it will kill me.”

“Killing you doesn’t serve my purposes,” the Queen says. “This--will do worse than that.”

“A sleeping curssssse,” the Dark One hisses. “You always did have your favorites.”

Regina whirls on him, her smile contorting into a snarl. “You demented little imp,” she says. “How long have you been helping her? What have you done? Why are you trying to break my curse?”

“What could I have done, Your Majesty? From my humble abode?”

The Queen sniffs as she opens her mouth to reply--

“I’m not eating this,” Emma says.

Regina raises her eyebrows. “It’s your choice.” She squeezes on Hook’s heart. “But we both know what will happen if you don’t.”

“But who will awaken me? I have never been in love,” she says, and it’s a lie. Hook _knows_ it’s a lie, has known it every morning that he has woken up without her. 

“My point, dear,” the Queen says with relish.

And this-- _this_ \--is what he wants her to remember, this moment when he looks at her and wants to reach for her, for the flame, for the heat, for the _magic_ and the light that she makes in the dark when her eyes glitter and there is no one but the two of them. The emotions--the anger, the rage--all of them have fallen away and Hook realizes they were not his to begin with. He _wants_ to feel the magic, but he cannot. Not without a heart. There is only the barest warmth as she meets his gaze and inhales, deeply. 

He has been betrayed--he has betrayed _her_ \--but in this, he knows what he must do.

Not revenge.

Love.

He looks at her and says, “It’s all right, Swan. Let me go. You have everything you need.”

He wants her to know that his death is not her fault, but his choice--that every choice he has made in his life has led him, somehow, to this.

“Ha!” The creature cackles and it sends a shiver through Hook, for that is a noise that he has never in his long years of chasing the Dark One heard before and he knows that it cannot presage glad tidings. Hook ignores him, shuts it out--there is nothing, no one, but her and them and this moment.

Lunacy.

Daring.

_Magic_.

He believes.

“What is this?” the Queen sneers. “A pirate with a hero complex? You didn’t learn your lesson from your previous failures?”

Hook swallows. “Milah is dead. I loved her, and I loved her enough to kill for her. But Emma--I love Emma enough to die for her.” He says all of this without looking away from her, from Emma--from _Swan_. Only when he finishes does he look at his old foe pacing behind the bars of his cell. Only then does he say, “The maid. Regina has the maid.”

It’s enough.

The Dark One is shrieking, laughter and tears as he bangs on the bars of his cell. “Regina!” He screams the name. “Regina!” 

And all hell breaks loose as the Queen’s grip on Hook’s heart drives him to his knees and into the welcome embrace of the blackness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no beta on this one. we die like real small creatures from alpha centauri.  
> -xo

There is applause and it is thunderous as it echoes off the rafters and the walls and sneaks into the crevices between the bookshelves where every manner of humanity is squeezed in, side-by-side; he feels as if he can hear them all breathing, or trying to, hung on his every word even as he is reliving it. Every second.

There is a voice next to him, poking at the edges of his consciousness, and he _remembers_.

Who he is.

 _Where_ he is.

Here, and now.

He shifts in his chair and glances with only the barest hesitation at the device on the table in front of him that records his voice and transmits it even farther, to those who are not physically present. He directs his question at the woman seated next to him, pert eyes and short hair and a beaming smile.

“Apologies, love,” he says. “Can you repeat that last bit?”

“How does it end? Do the princess and the pirate--?”

“Oh, aye. They get their happily-ever-after. It’s a thrilling tale, to be sure.” He suits his tone to match his words but the truth, of course, was rather more gruesome. He shuts his eyes, an attempt to stave off the flood of memories that threatens to overtake him, replacing the brightness of the bookshop’s event stage with the bleakness and the blackness of the dungeon and how it felt to fall, to catch his breath--his _breath_ , he was _breathing_. His view of _her_ was magnificent, her hand outstretched in defiance, the purple glow of the squid ink he’d given her--pressed into her hand in a moment of desperation and trust and _love_ \--enveloping the Evil Queen and binding her, immobilizing her on the spot. Emma twirled--dancing--spun on sure feet the three steps between herself and the Queen and caught his heart in her hands before it hit the stone floor.

“Killian!” It was a scream and sometimes he hears it, still, in his nightmares.

He coughs, swallowing bile.

There is--as if by magic--a bottle of water being pushed at him and he braces it against his left wrist, bringing into view the black glove he wears on his left hand as he twists off the cap and sips greedily, wishing it was possible to wash away the taste of a memory. The Dark One’s laughter as he smiled, as his teeth glittered and he straightened, pulling a sheet of paper from his pocket and blowing gently across the page as the words disappeared and re-formed in the air and settled on the bars, causing them to vanish. As if the bars were nothing more than an illusion, a trick, a _plan_. The creature lifted a single finger--in warning, in disappointment--pointed it at the Queen as he spoke. “You should have come to me for help when the Curse failed,” he whispered. It was conversational and chilling and the Queen her mouth to speak but said nothing, moved not a single muscle as she was bundled into the Dark One’s cell and the bars replaced, as solid as they ever had been. “You should have _listened_ when I taught you the proper casting of it. And what have you to show for it, Your Majesty, after all of these years? _Nothing_.” The creature sighed. “Whereas _I_ have a deal to conclude with this lovely young woman. Emma.”

The way he said the name was a caress and it was Emma’s turn to shiver, blinking as her palm turned up--the hand not holding Hook’s heart--and her knife pointed at the Dark One.

“Put that away, dearie,” the creature said. “I have other weapons I prefer. And you have something I need. And as soon as we are done--”

The plastic crinkles in the tightening grip of his fingers; sometimes the sound it makes still surprises him, soft and loud at the same time.

The water spills and the woman jumps.

“I’m quite all right,” he assures her, and she does not know enough to know he is lying.

She giggles, gives a grin that flashes the whitest and most perfect set of teeth he’s ever seen.

“So the princess, does she give Hook his heart back?”

He pulls at the chains around his neck as if it is a reflex, and maybe it is--maybe every time he feels the weight on it he thinks of nothing but her fingers and the way she smiled when she tangled her hand in the chains and pulled him upright, golden hair and glittering eyes as she smiled at him, the rush of success and victory coursing through her though he could not feel it.

“That would be telling,” he says, raising a single eyebrow and plastering on another smile as a wave of laughter rumbles through the audience.

(Her sad smile and the nervous way she said, “I’ve never done this before.”)

(“Held my heart in your hands?” Hook’s hand on her wrist, the warmth and the energy there. (“You’ve had it for longer than you realize, love. It is--and always will be-- _yours_.”)

“We’ll just have to read and find out,” she laughs, gesturing at the bound book stood up for display on the flimsy table.

 _The Land of Might-Have-Been_.

By _Killian Jones._

“So, Killian.” Her eyes flutter. “Tell us more about your main character. Hook. Where did you get your inspiration?”

He smiles, his hand rubs at the back of his neck before he leans forward, anchoring his elbow on the table and settling his hand under his chin. “In some ways I think of him as the man I used to be,” he says. “The man I would have been, if I had not found my way to a change.”

He put his life on the line for two things: Love and revenge.

 _Captain Hook_ had been forged in the fires of the latter.

Killian Jones had been set free by another kind of flame.

“I had a brother once. And a first love.” He rubs unconsciously at his right wrist, though the thick fabric of his shirt more than covers the tattoo there--more than covers _all_ of them, the details of his life inked into his arm like a sleeve, that told the story as easily as the book did and in fewer words. “I was hurting, and chasing after anything that might help me to overcome that pain, to regain control.” The octopus curling around his shoulder and down the side of his torso; the roped sailor’s knots; the tangled thorns of the vines digging into his bicep, dripping black venom. “I realized that I could be a better man. That I _wanted_ to be, and what I needed was to try something new.”

The Dark One’s voice was silk and oil, smooth and greasy. “--as soon as we are done, Regina, you are going to give me Belle. You are going to tell me what you’ve done with her. I will flay you while you speak, perhaps, or--”

“Rumplestiltskin.” It was the first time Hook had spoken the man’s name in decades.

Names had _Power_.

Such as the power of distraction; Hook struck as the creature turned, blocking Emma’s whitening face from his view as he stepped in between them and grasped the creature’s wrist with his hook, wrapping his hand around the other. Wrapping his hand and the object he concealed there--for while Hook may have been fatally unprepared for his first encounter with the Dark One, he’d vowed never to be without recourse again.

The creature _screamed_ as the cuff closed around his wrist and Hook said, “Surely you did not think I only traveled to Neverland in my quest for your demise? _Cora_ sends her regards, crocodile.”

The Queen’s gasp was audible--as well it might be, for she had banished her mother to Wonderland almost thirty years ago--and Emma’s face was blank, a cipher, as the creature whirled back to face her, clutching his wrist as if his hand had been _sliced off_ , and pleaded. “Missy. Missy…”

Hook stepped in between them, blocking the princess from the Dark One’s sight. “You want to make a deal, Dark One? Then you’re going to deal with me. That cuff will block your ability to access your magic unless or until _I_ decide to remove it, and not a minute sooner.” He turned to Emma. “Promise me, Swan, that you will see to it that Ariel truly got away safely, back to her prince and to her home. And perhaps you can do for Graham what you have done for me.”

“Killian.” _Power_. Magic. Fire. “What are you going to do?”

Lunacy.

The room around him is fully silent and even the interviewer is holding her breath when Killian says, “I thought about what it would be like for him--for Hook--if he had a chance to be a part of something. Because I know a little something about that, about not being able to forget your first love, to believe that you can’t move on. But all it took was meeting the right person--”

And on his left shoulder blade, just above his heart, a swan.

“It’s like he said. The Curse failed, love,” Hook said. “None of _this_ was meant to happen--none of this is what _he_ foresaw, or what _she_ planned. Isn’t that right, crocodile?”

The Evil Queen moved as if to strike, as if she had--or would ever have again--that freedom of movement, but the Dark One merely smiled.

“It wasn’t just your parents that were meant to be swept away by the Queen’s curse,” Hook said. “It was all of us. This entire realm sent someplace else, into a Land Without Magic. That’s where Baelfire went when he left his father.” Hook paused before continuing. “When he left me. He believed it was the only place he would be safe.”

“What’s your point, _pirate_?” The Dark One snapped.

“My point is that all magic comes with a price. My _point_ is that when the spell failed, something went wrong. And now is your chance, crocodile--to tell us. The truth. And in return--” he held up his hand, pointed it at the Dark One in attempt to forestall the protest that was surely imminent “--I will tell you where the maid is, your precious Belle. Where Regina has kept her all of these years. Perhaps I will even remove that cuff and allow you to do something about it.”

It took all of his strength not to mention the other thing, the object that consumed his days and his nights and his nightmares for the better part of three decades. The object that could kill the Dark One--his crocodile, Milah’s _murderer_. But Hook had made his choice.

He just wished he could feel it--feel her--the fire--the _magic_ \--because now he had a name for it, the way he felt about her--all of the things she made him feel and want and believe.

“Tell us, and I will use the portal to bring back the King and the Queen; I will leave, so long as you leave _Emma_ out of this. Emma and her family will be free of you and all of your schemes, hereafter.”

The creature cocked his head and tasted the air with his tongue, considering, until--

“No.” Emma was definitive.

The creature giggled as Emma moved, deliberately switching places with Hook to place herself between him and the crocodile, so she could force him to look at her and her green eyes. “I don’t need saving,” she said.

Hook smiled and said, “That’s good. Because I’m not a hero.”

“I can handle it. I’m not a damsel in distress.” She was lying; there was distress written all over her face, but this--this was something he _could_ do for her, something he _wanted_ to do. Something with purpose, with meaning, something _new_.

“Emma, think of yourself. Of your family. Of your _kingdom_. You can’t leave--and even if you could--there would be nothing left for me here. Not even the pursuit of my revenge. I cannot be that man any more. Darkness and hatred have left my life empty.” He cupped his hand over her cheek and stroked the tear forming there, brushing it aside. “I do not want to end up like Regina. Please.”

It was then and not a moment sooner that the world he’d so carefully constructed over the long years shattered, _finally_ \--completely--to pieces. As he stepped forward and pulled her against him, a drowning man grasping for a rope. As he pressed his lips to hers and she kissed him as if he were dying and she alone had oxygen.

“So, one last question, then, Killian. We’ll take it from the audience this time.”

In the crowd, someone rises--there is a flash of blonde and blue and Killian cannot--he _cannot_ \--

The woman’s eyes sparkle with amusement as she speaks. “Killian,” she says, “do you believe in True Love?”

Killian smiles. He forces himself to. He exhales a laugh.

He exhales a laugh to cover up the fact that all of his breath seems, suddenly, to leave his body.

 _Again_.

On account of a kiss.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like that, slow degrees of feeling welling up inside him, coming from someplace deep and unfamiliar except for the heat and the _magic_ that seemed to guide it; he had no defense for it, no protection against it, and it built into a wave so powerful that to feel it crest over him, exploding in sparkes of rainbow light, was nothing so much as a relief. He staggered back under its impact and braced himself against the bars of Regina’s cell and watched as a door formed before his--before _their_ \--eyes. His heart, so recently returned to him, pounding so hard that everything around him seemed to vibrate--his mind a thick haze of fire and light and magic. The torches in the dungeon ablaze and every kiss before this one merely a prelude, flint to light the kindling.

The door was three times the height of a man, taller than the dungeon as it seemed to pierce the ceiling. When it opened there was a lonely stretch of forest bisected by a strangely-paved path and a sign.

“Welcome to Storybrooke.”

At the sign--or more properly at the edge of it, just where it met the road--was a vessel unlike any Hook had ever seen before, heaving and steaming as a man kicked at it, swearing under his breath as if his invective would serve as fuel.

“Father,” Emma whispered.

And--from inside the vessel--a woman’s voice; “Mother.” There was the sound of something opening and closing as a piece of the thing swung open--a door--and a boy slid out.

No. Not a boy.

A young man.

The Evil Queen growled.

The Dark One hissed.

And Emma said, “Oh. Oh, _shit_.”

The lights are dim and the crowd dispersed as he leaves, waving a hand behind him and walking away from the storefront branded _Housing Works Bookstore._ It’s dry--a rarity in this city, he has found--dry and cool and clear, and if he angles his head just so between the so-called ‘skyscrapers’ there is a faint glimmer of the stars that are very nearly the same _here_ as they were _there_. He still remembers them, the way they shone in her eyes as the truth of what they were watching through the portal struck her.

“I have a brother,” she said, and her voice seemed to carry across the portal, across time and space, because a petite, dark-haired woman nearly fell out of the vessel as she looked up, looked around.

“Emma?”

It was a sound of disbelief and doubt and _hope_ but it, too, carried; the man straightened, the vessel forgotten as he started walking unerringly toward the portal that surely he could not see.

Emma swore again and turned to her grandmother, to the Evil Queen, and said, “They _remember_?” Out of all the possible questions, of course she chose the least expected. How--why--what--none of them was as salient as the simple fact. _They remembered._

The Queen raised in eyebrow in pure hauteur and Emma grabbed his hook and pulled him toward the door. “I must go to them,” she said, and he followed.

He would follow her to the end of the world and beyond; with a cry and a lunge she hurled herself at them, at her parents, at her brother.

Hook watched as Queen Snow took her daughter’s head in her hands and kissed the forehead, delicately--as King David pulled his daughter into his arms and cupped the back of her head, gently--as Leo introduced himself.

“Please don’t call me Leopold,” he said, and Emma laughed through her tears.

“This is Killian,” she said. “Captain Killian Jones.”

David’s eyes narrowed as he took in the silver prosthetic where Hook’s left hand used to be. “Captain _Hook_?”

But Snow said, “Now is _not_ the time, David,” and her green eyes shone almost as brightly as her daughter’s as she looked at him, up and down from his boots to his eyes that were lowered, respectfully--as she stepped forward and took his face in her hands the same way she had taken Emma’s. “Thank you,” she said.

Hook blushed. “I--milady--gratitude is hardly necessary,” he said. His voice was low and gravelly and, for the first time in a long time, uncertain. He was _uncertain_ and his hand reached, unthinkingly, for Emma’s, for the warmth and the comfort he found there.

“You found us,” Snow insisted.

“Emma found you,” Hook said.

“And I never doubted she would,” Snow said. “But I know what you did for her, why she is able to be here right now.”

“What--” Hook swallowed. “What did I do?”

Queen Snow looked at him, and looked at her daughter, at their hands clasped together and said, “True Love’s Kiss. It’s the only magic strong enough to break any curse.”

“Oh,” Hook said. _Oh_.

He dropped Emma’s hand and stepped back.

The King grumbled. “Let’s discuss this at home. We have a kingdom to take back.” Then, under his breath: “Again.”

The word hung in the air. _Home_.

Hook took another step back--turned away--opened his mouth--all he knew, with _certainty_ , was that he could not go back there. He could not go back to that place and that _person_ who carried around all of that darkness and anger and hate. He wanted to stay. He was a pirate, a Lost Boy; it would not be the first time in his life that he found himself in a new place with nothing but his wits and his hook and the things he carried.

But Swan--

Emma.

 _Princess_ Emma.

She--

He would follow her. Of course he would. He could just as soon live without air as he could live without her.

(He’s known that since the first morning he’d woken up to find her gone; he’s known that every night he’s dreamed of her and every morning since.)

“Oh,” Snow said. _“Oh_.” Mother and daughter watched each other, identical eyes matched in understanding. “Emma’s not coming home,” Snow said.

It is very nearly midnight when Killian returns home, unlocking his front door with practiced ease and slipping the keys into the pocket of his leather blazer.

What he is not prepared for, or expecting, is _her_.

Waiting for him.

(Truth be known, he might never be.)

Emma Swan, his True Love, is waiting for him, her green eyes twinkling in the streetlights that are shining through the windows of their flat and still--always--nothing prepares him for the sight of her. Her golden hair is lighter now, streaked with very fine strands of silver; the blue leather of her jacket is bright and adorned with zippers instead of gemstones. She wears no jewelry, in this place--they sold most of it a long time ago. Her only adornment is a silver chain around her neck and the ring he gave her--his brother’s ring--between her breasts.

“You beat me home,” he says.

“You had your adoring fans to contend with,” she says, and laughs. Killian shuts the door behind him and inhales, slowly, savoring it the way he always does--sweet and spicy--and she watches him.

“Your eyes,” she says. “I love the way you look at me. Still.”

“Always.”

And it’s not a dream, but sometimes it still feels like one, when she grabs him and says his name and--somehow--he can feel the Power in it. She grabs him and he forgets where they are and when they are and he _remembers_ the day she decided to stay here. With him.

“I didn’t ask for any of this,” she said, looking at her mother and her father and her younger brother, the heir-presumptive once the King and the Queen were back on their rightful thrones. Killian had no doubts that they would see to Regina, and to the Dark One. Snow would give Graham back his heart and make certain that Belle was safe and cared for.

For the moment, there were more important matters to attend to.

Snow White ran her fingers through her daughter’s hair. Her voice was somehow strong and brittle at the same time--understanding twinged with sadness. “No,” she murmured. “You didn’t.”

Emma didn’t cry when she said, “I want something free of all of this. Free of the past and all its scars. Something I’ve chosen. Away from--”

“Us,” King David--the man once known across realms as Prince Charming--said.

“No,” Emma said. “But--yes. I’m sorry.”

That’s when David took her in his arms. “You have nothing to apologize for. Not to us. Not _ever_. We love you. All that matters is that you know that, and are happy.”

And they were.

They _are_.

Together; they still make a good team.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she whispers. “Do you believe in True Love, Killian?” She stands on her toes and kisses him and it’s full of sweetness and love and he can feel it--the warmth and comfort and the _magic_ that they were both told couldn’t exist in this place but which they kindle with the light they make for each other. The past, here, is nothing more than a bad dream from which he’s awakened, finding himself in her arms until the nightmares are banished and there is nothing but the two of them.

Killian lifts his mouth from hers and takes her hands and kisses them, the backs, each knuckle, before he settles them over his heart. It beats, hard but steady--so steady--as he holds her hands there. “Aye, love,” he says. “You are my happy ending.”

She pulls her hands away, pulls his hands in hers as she says, “That’s not what this is.” He feels it through the layers of her clothing as his hand rests over her abdomen--the flutter there--and he laughs, as she smiles a _real_ smile, that _same_ smile, from the night they met. “It’s a happy beginning.”

And that, surely, is nothing short of magic.

-30-


End file.
